Moderators: Moderators, Junior Moderators
I wonder if they have quoted Basra's racist language towards Afrikaanta, waliba madowga mareykanka
The following case description draws on a personal interview and correspondence
with the founder, and a review of empirical data and observation of the Somalinet
web page 〈www.somalinet.com〉, including an analysis of its links and discussion
boards. With permission from the site founder, the research team registered as a user
in order to obtain access to the discussion forums, but did not participate in any
discussions or exchanges. The team solely listened and observed. Threads from the
General Discussions, North America – USA, North American General Discussions,
Women General Discussions, and General Discussions – Members Only were systematically
analysed during the three-month period, May to August 2003.87 Threads
were selected for analysis based on the topic’s relevance to the research questions. To
augment this analysis and partially counter bias selection, additional threads were
selected randomly to sample the general climate of the digital diaspora.88 Quotes
from the web pages and discussion forums include the original language, including
errors in punctuation and spelling. Quotes are identified by the thread title in italics.
But i see, u r very pro-adoons, why do u care for them so much. DO u have to remind me of my prejudice everytime? I am very uncomfortable yaqqee! 
https://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.p ... 1343/20013Somalinet published my field reports,
and added a “Forum Discussion.”19 Here, anybody
could respond (anonymously or including his/her e-mail
address) to the writings. Interesting debates followed, in
which I personally also contributed to the Forum Discussion
a number of times in order to respond to various comments.
In a fewcases, the discussions went on in the less public space
of e-mail. Somalinet then published a preliminary version
of the first chapter to my thesis, adding my e-mail address
and encouraging readers to send their remarks to me. Furthermore,
I sent a number of my writings to a UNHCR staff
member, who invitedme to have them published as a working
paper, appearing both on the Internet site and in hard
copy.20 This gave me feedback from policy makers, UN or
NGO staff, and researchers. I thus built up a list of e-mail
addresses of a very specialized group of interested readers,
combining Somalis in the diaspora with refugee “specialists,”
and decided to utilize that resource.
Starting up a mailing list, I introduced my initiative as
follows:
Some days ago, a Somali student at Melbourne University asked
me whether I had ever thought about ‘setting up a group of
Somali people living around the world to give you advice on the
methods you use, the areas you need to do more research on,
or any other support you may need’. At the same moment, I was
going through some articles on diasporas, transnationalism and
global networks. In many of these articles it was suggested that
research in this field should be carried out within a transnational,
trans-disciplinary network that consists of academics,
practitioners, policy makers, and the ‘transnational migrants’
themselves. I fully agree. The suggestion was brilliant and perfectly
timed.
I would send any of my writings through this mailing
list, and had discussions with its individualmembers onmy
writings and other topics. Thus, I learnedmuchmore about
the position of Somalis in the diaspora and was even contacted
by a number of refugees who had lived in Dadaab,
some of whom I had met, and who were now building up
there lives elsewhere.
Abukar Rashid, for example, with whom I had worked
in Hagadera, contactedme while he was in Nairobi, waiting
for his ticket to Canada.21We had not exchanged addresses,
but he was surfing the Net when he found my writings and
e-mail address. When Abukar arrived in Canada he contacted
me again, and kept me informed about his new life.
We stayed in touch, and he was the person who advised me
to send one of my more politically engaged articles, on the
closure of xawilaad offices in the aftermath of September
11, 2001, to Hiiraan.com. When I did, it was immediately
published, and the responses were overwhelming. In the
first few days, I received over ten e-mails a day. It seemed
that taking a stance so firmly to “support the Somali case”
and condemn the actions of the U.S. government against
certain xawilaad offices really had an impact. I had clearly
positioned myself, taking sides, and this was appreciated.
More work was published on Hiiraan, and I got in touch
with a number of very qualified and experienced Somalis,
many of them highly educated and in good positions in
their new countries.
To further illustrate the incredible value of electronic
media for data collection and analysis, and give an impression
of the kinds of dialogues that took place “in cyberspace,”
I have selected sections from the electronic
dialogues I had with Aden Yusuf. Aden works as a program
analyst for a state health department in the U.S. and has an
M.A. in development economics. He was born in central
Somalia, lived inKenya formany years, and nowfeels rather
settled in the U.S., where he stays with his wife and three
children. Aden initially responded to the article on the
closure of the xawilaad that I had sent to the Hiiraan
website. From there, our dialogues took off. I sent him my
various writings and he sentme relevant newspaper articles
and Internet links.He also gaveme his detailed feedback on
all preliminary chapters of my thesis and came with many
examples of the arguments I wanted to make. I asked him
(and others) for advice when I was struggling to correctly
reproduce certain Somali words or practices.We had fascinating
discussions, for example on the Somali sense of
transnationalism that was so central in my work.
.Basra walaal, I fear one your sons might bring home a jareer African American woman with a nose the size of Atlantic OceanBenaale@loool
I hope NOT. I will be ashamed to read my comments so exposed like that.
Return to “General - General Discussions”
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 75 guests